Working downtown in Billings has its perks. It also has headaches that come with it. 

Working atop the double tree hotel is the best thing ever! We get to see the sunrise, and we have 360 views of the entire city. You could say we are BLESSED in that department.  

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Credit: Canva
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But when you get a parking ticket in your first week of work, it stings just a bit.  

There’s barely any (free) parking downtown. Our physical parking lot at the hotel is so tiny, it fills up quickly especially in the mornings.  

Here’s the deal- parking is EXPENSIVE. $8/ day for the parking garage. That’s $40 a week, and wow that hurts the wallet.  

Because parking is a nightmare, I parked on Montana Ave at a meter at 5am.

The meter doesn’t start until 8am. I walked out at 10:30am and HOORAY, a parking ticket littered my windshield. 

My only question is why aren’t there more options for parking in Billings? 

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Credit: Canva
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 The garage finally got me my parking pass for the garage, which I’m truly grateful for.  

How do people afford to park downtown every day?

I have one buddy who Ubers to work every day here in Billings since parking is a nightmare. But OUCH! That’s even more expensive.  

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Credit: Canva
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I don’t know what the solution is.

All I know is there needs to be more options,  so people aren’t getting tickets left and right.  

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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